Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 22

(U3S0DD B-6 Friday, Sept. 27, 1991 Santa Cruz Sentinel LrTf -5i "ri kv gr FCC adds frequencies to AM radio band higher power and with less interference. It will take several years for stations to begin using the new frequencies because listeners will have to buy new radios. The key factor will be persuading manufacturers of car radios to build units with expanded dials. Since it will probably be several years before most people have bought cars with the new radio units, the FCC is allowing broadcasters that move to the new band to keep using their old frequencies for five years.

Hundreds of new stations have been licensed over the last decade, as the FCC has sought to promote competition. But as a result, there has been steadily increasing interference. The purpose of the new frequencies is to reduce overcrowding by allowing existing stations to move to a new uncrowded spot on the dial. Stations that do so will have to meet tougher technical requirements concerning noise reduction, but they will be separated much more widely from other broadcasters, allowing them to broadcast at dio. Many AM stations are now in danger of becoming anachronistic curiosities.

More than half of all AM stations are losing money, according to the National Association of Broadcasters. The median station loses about $11,000 a year, it said. Indeed, the FCC recently reported that 197 AM stations were currently silent, generally because they were unprofitable, and the owners could not attract buyers for their licenses. In essence, Thursday's actions are intended to encourage broadcasters to adopt modern technology to strengthen their business. 1605 kilohertz.

To receive the new frequencies, consumers will have to buy a new generation of radios, because today's radios go only to 1600. The new frequencies will be reserved for existing radio stations that are willing to move to a new spot on the dial. The commission also attempted to reduce interference from stations that are too close together by making it easier for a broadcaster to acquire another station in the same market and shut it down. Broadcasting executives welcomed the moves, which have been in the works for more than a year, saying they would help reduce interference between adjacent AM stations and strengthen the moribund industry. But analysts said the long-term prospects for many AM stations remained doubtful, and suggested that today's moves could be last-ditch efforts.

The FCC's chairman, Alfred C. Sikes, called AM radio "very, very sick." AM radio, the nation's first broadcasting medium, dominated the commercial airwaves for several decades but has been eclipsed by the technical superiority of FM ra- Creates need for new radios By EDMUND ANDREWS The New York Times WASHINGTON In an effort to save the money-losing business of AM radio, the Federal Communications Commission overhauled its rules Thursday, seeking to reduce both congestion on the dial and the annoying interference it produces. The new rules will add frequencies, stretching the upper limit of the AM band to 1705 kilohertz from bailout needs a lot more money GNP, jobless reports show new weakness By MARTIN CRUTSINGER The Associated Press WASHINGTON The U.S. economy declined at a worse-than-expected annual rate of 0.5 percent in the spring, and there was a big jump in laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits early this month, the government said Thursday. The downward revision in the gross national product, the country's total output of goods and services, and the 8.9 percent increase in the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits were the latest signs of a struggling economy, analysts said.

"The recovery is in trouble," said David Jones, an economist at Aubrey G. Lanston a government securities dealer. "The weak spots are employment, consumer spending and housing. Those could be dangerous signs that the recovery will stall out." Analysts had been expecting the GNP report to newfound weakness from April through June, 'TVlP TPPfYVPTV DUt tnev were surprised i lie cu vcij th th Los Angeles Daily News LOS ANGELES The executive director of the Resolution Trust Corp. has issued a warning: Despite the money and time already spent in the savings and loan scandal, the end is not in sight.

Originally expected to involve about 500 savings and loans at a cost of $50 billion, the bailout is now expected to involve about 90C institutions with a $160 billion price tag, said David C. Cooke, executive director of the RTC, the government agency set up to dissolve insolvent "Our job is to protect depositors by cleaning up the mess left behind by the debacle. Yours, unfortunately, is to pay for it," said Cooke, speaking Thursday at a Los Angeles Town Hall meeting. Recently, the agency has come under attack from General Accounting Office officials, who charged that the RTC's $24 million asset-tracking computer is almost useless because of faulty data. Cooke said the agency in studying the computer problems.

"Anytime you have a system like that, you're going to have some bugs," he said. The RTC also has been accused of flooding the real estate market with seized properties, making it difficult for struggling but solvent to unload their assets. While acknowledging the agency's problems, Cooke said the RTC was given a near impossible task when it was founded two years ago. "The RTC was handed 262 to resolve on its very first day," said Cooke. So far, it has either sold or liquidated 548 about 85 percent of those seized, and has sold $188 billion in assets through July, Cooke said.

Still, Cooke said more difficult sales lie ahead. The RTC is holding $156 billion in assets, including junk bonds and defaulted loans a David C. Cooke Resolution Trust Corp. director that don't have ready buyers. To sell those assets, the agency is grouping similar loans into pools and selling the issues as securities to the public.

Cash is set aside to guarantee the securities' performance, he said. is in trouble. percent with consumer and government spending and Confidence slipping in West NEW YORK Consumer confidence in the, economy dropped to an eight-month low this-week as personal financial worries struck deep-into the middle class, an ABC News-Money magazine poll showed Thursday. The drop in confidence rivals the economic gloom that prevailed during the Persian Gulf" War. In addition, the poll showed, pessimism is growing in the West and Midwest, once among the nation's brighter economic spots that some forecasters had said would lead the nation out of recession.

Consumers rated their personal finances as unsatisfactory for the eighth straight week, a record for the survey. Even among those earn-. ing $25,000 to $40,000, half reported money diffi; culties at home. Eighty-three percent of respondents gave a' negative rating to the overall national econo-t my, the most in two months. An almost equal percentage said they were unwilling to spend money.

The poll was another piece of evidence suggesting the recovery heralded by many economists has sputtered. The ABC-Money consumer comfort index, based on a scale of plus 100 to minus 100, fell to minus 41 in the latest poll, down three points from a week earlier and the lowest point since Jan. 6. Consumer confidence is critical to helping the economy climb out of recession because consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of all economic activity. If consumers don't spend, then merchants can't sell, facto ries lose orders and employers trim their work- forces.

Minnesota is first to try play-at-home video lottery Dnvirl Tnnpi business restocking of in- juvvu uvuj-o ventories all revised lower. economist It marked the second straight downward revision. Originally, the economy was thought to have actually been growing at an annual rate of 0.4 percent in the spring. That was revised last month to show a slight 0.1 percent decline. The rise in jobless claims to 439,000 for the week ending Sept.

14, up from 403,000 the previous week, was seen as even more worrisome because it showed that layoffs, which should be declining in a normal recovery, are beginning to rise again. The increase left jobless claims at their highest level in three months. Analysts said only part of the jump could be explained away by the fact that it reflected a rebound following a holiday-shortened filing period in the previous week. The Bush administration continued to insist that the recovery from the recession has begun, most likely in May, and that the GNP will rebound and begin growing at annual rates of between 2 percent and 3 percent in the last half of the year. "We still believe we are coming out of a recession.

It is a process that is underway," presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters. But he added, "We want to do everything possible to keep the economy going. These numbers certainly show that we cannot be complacent." Administration officials have conceded that various statistics show the economy growing at a slower pace than they would like to see as the country heads into a presidential election year. President Bush convened two meetings this week of his Cabinet-level Economic Policy Council to discuss what more the government needs to do to spur the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will meet with Bush and his top economic policymakers on Friday and analysts expect officials will step up the pressure for the Fed to cut interest rates further.

"There is no question but the administration wants Greenspan to cut rates again," said David Wyss; chief State Lottery cartridge to hook up to the lottery's computer system. Participants would have to deposit up to $200 in advance and no credit would be extended. Any winnings would be credited to their account, but prizes of $1,000 or more must be claimed through a lottery office. There would be a $50 daily limit for at-home players. "This is a whole new exciting level of use of a piece of equipment already owned by a large number of people," Andersen said.

Control Data the lottery system's vendor, has developed the software and is assisting in the six-month test scheduled to begin in June or July. There are 3,875 retail lottery outlets in the state, and the new sys The Associated Press ST. PAUL, Minn. Minnesota, one of the last states to enter the lottery sweepstakes, plans to become the first to let people play the lottery at home using equipment from a popular video game. Although there has been criticism from a few state legislators, Lottery Director George Andersen said he plans to press ahead with an experiment to have about 10,000 people test the play-at-home lottery system.

Minnesota would be the first state to dabble in what he calls a "high-tech lottery system," he said. Lottery players would be able to select their lucky numbers by using the control deck from a Nintendo video game and a Minnesota tem is "never, ever going to replace the retailer system," Andersen said. About 500 people have volunteered to sign up since the idea won the approval of the lottery's board of directors a few weeks ago, Andersen said. Minnesotans own nearly 600,000 Nintendo units. About a third of the households have at least one, and half the owners are adults.

The new service is aimed at relatively affluent people who would like to play the lottery but are too busy to buy tickets, Andersen said. He said strict controls have been built into the system to ensure that minors do not use the units to play the lottery. It's illegal for minors to purchase lottery tickets. One critic is Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe. financial economist at DRI-McGraw Hill.

Wyss predicted that the Fed will go along, especially in light of an unrelenting string of weak economic reports showing drops in housing sales, manufacturing orders and consumer confidence. Michael Evans, head of Washington forecasting firm, said the latest batch of bad news had forced him to trim his forecast for GNP growth in the final half of this year to around 1 percent. That would be far below the 3.2 percent growth needed to reach the administration's forecast that the economy will expand by 0.8 percent for the full year. The hardships caused by the recession were highlighted in another report Thursday that showed the number of Americans living in poverty rose 5.5 percent last year to 33.6 million. It was the first increase since 1983 when the country was emerging from the previous recession.

Bank database called unfair move from bank to bank, opening accounts and bouncing checks. But Consumer Action says ordinary consumers can get barred from holding accounts, too. "There is no distinction between a criminal and someone who has bounced three bad checks," said Mark Foster, policy analyst at Consumer Action. The ChexSystems database currently holds 7.3 million names of consumers whose accounts their banks say were closed "for cause." Banks and thrifts use the data to screen potential new account Los Angeles Daily News Bank and thrift customers could be banned from opening a checking account at a new institution for five years if their name ends up in an industry database that a consumer group has said is unfairly compiled. San Francisco-based Consumer Action said Thursday that its most recent survey of 47 of California's largest institutions found that 31, or two-thirds, ban consumers from opening accounts if they are listed with a private account verification system known as ChexSystems.

The system is meant to thwart professional check kiters who The problem stems from the different definitions various banks have of "for cause," the group said. Stu Alexander, a spokesman for ChexSystems' parent company, St. Paul, based Deluxe confirmed that the system does not issue standard criteria as to what constitutes an account closed "for cause." That is left up to the banks. ChexSystems serves 59,000 bank and thrift branch locations around the country. Some 17 million inquiries were made to ChexSystems' database in the past 12 months, according to Alexander.

Special Shipment! AG A Take advantage of special year end pricing on our final "6" 1 991 Jaguars Business digest Exchange member firms that do business with the public made $859 million in the second quarter of 1991, furthering their sharp rebound from losses last year, the NYSE said Thursday. On top of $957 million in aftertax profits in the first three months of the year, the six-month profit of $1.82 billion puts Wall Street on course for a record year. From Sentinel wire services RATES ARE DROPPING Jury awards woman $6 million in bias suit LOS ANGELES More than $6 million awarded by jurors to a female employee in a sex discrimination suit against Texaco Inc. represents the largest amount ever given an individual in such a case, attorneys said. The Superior Court jury award Wednesday also marked one of the first times a significant amount was given middle management, a group that hasn't been represented in such bias complaints previously.

Janella Sue Martin, 48, filed suit against Texaco in 1986 claiming she was twice rejected for management positions because of her gender. She said she suffered emotionally after men were given the higher-paying jobs. Ms. Martin, who still works for the oil company, is western region credit supervisor for Texaco. Big public firms see profits soar NEW YORK New York Stock Callus8a.m.

to 10p.m. 7DaysA Week OUR LOWEST RATES AVAILABLE EVERYDAY. POINT OPTION. NO CLOSING COST OPTION. 7.875 8.875 4.75 FIXED RATE 30 YR.

FIXED 30 ARM 30525 APR 8.09 APR9.1956 7.714APR YOU CAN QUALIFY FOR MORE PURCHASE OR REFINANCE! Groti Rd. MOTOR COMPANY, INC. JAGUAR- SUBARU PONTIAC- BUICK- CADILLAC- GMC 41 OH Antn Dl97a IV niorhitstlnilTC-Octs A.